


On the Beginning of the World and the Cloud Minders

by KriegsaffeNo9



Category: Original Work
Genre: Creation Myth, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 14:13:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16834219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KriegsaffeNo9/pseuds/KriegsaffeNo9
Summary: This is the story the Cloud Minders tell of why the moon made them.





	On the Beginning of the World and the Cloud Minders

In the beginning there was the night, and the gods who lived in the sea of the stars. There was an eternity before there was a single day on Earth, and in that eternity the gods ventured into the endless dark and found who they were and what strengths dwelled within them. At the end of this first eternity, the gods at last met again at the place of their birth, the Moon. They came together to reveal their strengths to their peers and end their loneliness at last.

For many long years the gods dwelled on the Moon, and they found love with each other. In doing the gods found that they could not bear children of their own, but through the marriage of their great talents they could create something else entirely. Unable to sire heirs, but desiring to create new life with their partners, the gods in their great couplings created the world that we know and live in.

The Rainlord and Rainlady spoke, and the rain fell for ten thousand years until a world of water was born. The Earthlord and Earthlady danced, and as their steps cracked the stormy waters land rose and solidified, trapping water for itself in streams and lakes. The Windlord and Windlady breathed, and their breath blew forever around the world, catching the rain and drying the land. The Lords and Ladies of beasts went into the hills and plains and all life sprung up to chase them and be chased.

Even then, the gods came into conflict. The Beastlord and Beastlady found that they were being followed in their paths by human beings, an animal that refused to stay with the other animals around them. They needed more than brute existence; they desired creation and purpose like the gods that made them. The gods came together and discussed what was to be done with these beings.

The Lord of Judgment proclaimed that humans were already too far gone to consider allowing to live. Were the gods not gods for a reason? These lesser things were presumptuous. In anger, he created Hell, and its heralds, the Living Gates, whose crushing maws are the surest entrance to eternal suffering.

The other gods objected, and the first war in heaven sounded. The skies darkened and alit with horrible color. Stars rained and the dead sounded their dismay. When the war in heaven ended, the Lord of Judgment was consigned to his own creation, and the Lady of Judgment gone into exile at sea, in the company of the Lost Tribe who even now sail endlessly across the endless ocean.

In the ashes of that great conflict, the gods found that humanity had survived the fallout and were still seeking meaning. Taking pity for their creations, the gods descended to the planet to give guidance to the people.

In such a fashion the gods gave the peoples of Earth each their own task, their own aspect of the universe to shepherd. The people all have their own stories of the gods, their own names, but make no mistake, we are all born from the same divinities, and we all follow the guidance they have left for us.

Soon all that should be taken care of was given its own people to watch for it; all save the beak sheep. The beak sheep are small and angry and rude and they are capable of eating anything, and will if they are sufficiently hungry or bored. They are unloved and before we were born they were said to be unlovable. No people of Earth wanted anything to do with such incorrigible things. It is known that the Stormlord and Stormlady reserve a particular disdain for them, and from this they learned their only peaceable trait: a sense for where it is safest to be when the Lord and Lady squabble and the Earth is scoured by lightning and tornadoes.

On that particular night, when all the people of Earth had a task and the beak sheep were left on their own in the wake of the worst storm to touch the planet, the moon rose in the slowly-breaking cloud cover and looked upon the lonesome sheep with piteous eyes. "Let them not be alone," she said, and from that selfless wish were born the Cloud Minders.

We went among the beak sheep and learned the means by which they spoke, the fashion in which they grazed, the utility of their feathers, the deliciousness of their meat and the artistry hidden in their bones. We bred them in such a way that their feathers mimicked the grass of other lands and places; we made them more agreeable, though nothing can truly tame them; and we trade these creatures to our neighbors who would have uses for them, as food, for their feathers, for all things. We are the heart of the world and the beak sheep are our contribution to its smooth operation.

The moon is our mother and every night she casts her gaze upon us to see us sleep in peace; even when the sky is black and storms are upon us, she is only as far as the other side of the clouds.

We were made to love that which could not be loved; we have calmed a bitter heart and we have fed and clothed and kept dry generation upon generation of our brothers and sisters. Though the storm may fall upon us, we will endure, so long as the moon's eye falls upon the Cloud Minders.


End file.
